Leon Turnbull Photography

This is from Bishop’s Beach in Homer. The view across Kachemak Bay of the mountains and glaciers is definitely stunning. Dang, it’d be nice to live in Homer … if I could get a job there, and if it weren’t so darn expensive. My wife would like to move there, that’s for sure.

My father-in-law bought a (very small) cabin there, and he goes to Homer for about 1 or 2 weeks every year. My wife’s brother and his family were staying with him for the week. No room for us in that small cabin, though, so we stayed with my wife’s aunt, who also owns a summer cabin there (she lives in Nome for most of the year). Her cabin is incredibly nice, and she even has her very own private lake, with large open windows looking out onto the lake. There is a duck family that lives on the lake (they have their own private lake too). She says moose frequently come by her lake and cabin, but unfortunately we did not see any while we were there. I spent a lot of time just looking out onto the lake from the living room (and hoping to see a moose come by). I did see plenty of moose around other areas of Homer, though. My wife’s aunt is quite the adventurer and has many interesting stories to tell of her travels. She was the very first woman to cross the Northwest Passage in a yacht (I think I have that fact, correct). She said once that she wanted to kill herself because of the horrible sea-sickness. Sounds like a great trip to me. ha ha.

Bald Eagles are rather common in Homer, Alaska. In the winter, Homer is home to hundreds of bald eagles. It is illegal to feed them now, but there used to be a lady (the Eagle Lady) there who fed the eagles in the winter (she has since died). In the summer, there are still a large number of the birds. It is impossible to drive through Homer in the summer without seeing at least 20 eagles or more. To the Alaskan, they are very common birds. Almost as common as seagulls (there are plenty of seagulls there too). For those of us who don’t see bald eagles very often (such as here in California), it is a very big deal to see one. But to Alaskans, not so much. My 4 year old daughter, Nekoda, came up with the most perfect quote about this. Near the end of our trip, we were outside eating ice cream, and my wife said “Oh look, there’s an eagle. Oh, never mind, it’s just a seagull.” Nekoda responded, “Eagles … Seagulls … Whatever.” I think she hit the nail on the head with that one.

I have always loved bald eagles. They are easily my most favourite bird, and I was very much excited to go to Homer and photograph them. They are MUCH easier to photograph in the winter because there are so many more of them. But in the summer, it is still possible to get some nice, good, close-up shots.

I probably took well over a hundred different eagle photos, but here are some more of my favourites from the week:

Most of our week in Alaska was spent in Homer on the Kenai Peninsula. We sure had it good in Homer. Free lodging for the entire week. Can’t beat that. Mostly, we stayed with my wife’s aunt, who has a summer cabin in Homer. I’ll talk a bit more about that later. One day, however, we were very fortunate in that we were invited to stay one night at an incredible cabin along the beach, just outside Homer. My wife’s cousin is a doctor in Homer and is rather well off, and he owns quite a few acres along the beach, and has built a private cabin there. It is a beautifully built log cabin, and is completely environmentally friendly, solar powered, all the running water in the cabin is collected from rain, and vegetables grown in the fabulous garden. I particularly liked the outhouse. It has no door, and overlooks the beach. If anyone was walking along the beach while you were sitting there, you would be able to see them, but they would not be able to see you due to tree cover.

To get to this cabin requires about a 1.5 mile hike down a public trail to the beach, then up the beach to the cabin. Along the way, we saw seals, sea otters, and eagles. There was even a small waterfall along the trail. It felt a lot like hiking in Hawaii because it was a rather hot and humid afternoon, but the vegetation was so lush and beautiful. It was a fairly easy hike to the cabin, and my kids both managed the hike very well. We were joined by Tara’s brother and his wife and baby, and our host, Tara’s cousin.

Now I have to admit that I really didn’t want to go out to the cabin at first. The reason was that it was pouring rain all that morning in Homer. I was sure we would get totally soaked and be very cold hiking out there, and it would not be an overall pleasant experience. My wife, however, insisted that we go. I am glad that she did. The rain cleared up by the afternoon, and it was a very lovely evening, and I was able to get this very nice photo down along the beach at sunset. At low tide, there are tons of cool tide pools on the beach in front of the cabin. We had a lot fun exploring them.

Well, you know I would have loved to have seen a grizzly bear and gotten a good photograph of one while I was in Alaska. But from a safe distance. I did not really want to encounter one while hiking, especially a Grizzly mom with her cubs. Especially an agressive Grizzly mom. Especially an agressive Grizzly mom that had been known to have recently charged other hikers. And thus, I came to the trailhead at South Fork Eagle River Falls and encountered the sign as shown below. Hmmm …

But you see there was a waterfall here that I really really wanted to see. Should I just turn back because of this sign? Or should I continue and hike to the waterfall? Of course, I would continue.

You may think it was very dangerous for me to go hiking alone in known grizzly territory as such. But it was a calculated risk, and I determined it to be very minimal. I knew from talking to a couple of bikers that the grizzly was seen 3 or 4 miles away, and the waterfall was only a half-mile in. They had just been to the falls and had not seen anything. So I determined it was safe enough to continue. But I was still a bit nervous hiking into the falls, and I was making noise and whistling the whole way. I really had nothing to worry about though. I saw no sign of any grizzly. Even so, I did not spend much time at the falls. I would have definitely liked to have spent more time here, and try to get down to the base of the falls. That would have taken a bit of time though, and I figured it might just be pushing my luck. So I just opted to take my photo from the viewpoint and go right back to the car.

When I got back to the trailhead, I saw a couple joggers heading out on the trail. They were obviously locals and had no care about seeing any grizzlies. I told them the grizzly had been seen 3 miles in, and they obviously were going a lot further than just a half-mile to the falls. But they had no worries whatsoever. You gotta love them Alaskans.

Sign at trailhead. Note the masterful spelling job. 🙂

Taking a short break from all my Alaska images. I don’t want to bore you to death with too many incredibly scenic images of Alaskan landscapes. ha ha.

This past weekend, we went down to Folsom Lake to have a bit of fun. It was only about 90 degrees, so it wasn’t too horribly hot and we found some shade to eat our lunch. If it was any hotter though, I wouldn’t have been able to handle being outside in it. After lunch, Tara and the kids (and the dog) swam around in the lake, and I went around looking for stuff to photograph. If you are wondering why I did not swim, there is no way you would catch me swimming in a gooey, yucky, lake, any lake. No way. I was happy to join my family there for the afternoon, but I will stay on the land thank you very much. Anyway, I couldn’t find much in the way of birds to photograph; they did not seem to want to come very near to me. That is probably mostly because my dog was running around off leash, and splashing around in the water. We were the only ones in this area, so it was cool for her to run around like that, and she had loads of fun doing so. But it also meant she had to have a bath when we got home, which she never is very thrilled about. Anyway, I struck out on the birds, but there were a lot of dragonflies flying around, so I thought I would try my hand at taking some photos of them. I saw a few of them like this one, just hanging onto a blade of grass, riding in the wind. I kinda liked this shot, taken with my 100-400mm lens.